Coppin State University is welcoming the 78th Annual Conference of the National Association of Dramatic and Speech Arts (NADSA) to the campus from Wednesday, April 2, through Saturday, April 5, 2014. NADSA is the oldest continuously operating national educational theatre organization in the U.S., and its conference features performances, workshops, keynote events and student competitions in acting, design, play production, oral interpretation, readers’ theatre and persuasive speaking. More than 100 students from more than a dozen HBCUs will be on the campus to engage in this four-day experience of learning and performing. Dr. Garey A. Hyatt, coordinator of Coppin’s Visual and Performing arts Program, is the immediate past president of the organization. A schedule of conference events is posted at http://www.coppin.edu/download/downloads/id/986/the_national_association_of_dramatic_and_speech_arts_festival_competition

A reprise performance of Coppin’s March, 2014, production of “The Waiting Room,” will be performed by Coppin Repertory Theatre on Wednesday, April 2, at 7:30 p.m. in Johnson Auditorium and is open to the public. Originally presented in the intimate Theatre Lab, the production has been restaged by its director and cast to accommodate the much larger stage of the auditorium. General admission is $15; senior and non-Coppin student tickets are $10 and tickets for CSU students with IDs are just $5. For more information, call 410-951-3369 and see http://www.coppin.edu/calendar?eventid=307

The Allen Williams Play Competition, a highlight of each year’s conference, will be held Friday, April 4, in Johnson Auditorium in two segments, from 12:00 noon to 3:10 p.m. and from 5:15 to 7:20 p.m. Students from Winston-Salem, Grambling, Norfolk and Jackson State Universities and from University of Arkansas at Pine Bluff will perform hour-long plays, which will be evaluated by a team of judges. This event is also open to the public. Admission is $7 for one segment and just $12 for the entire afternoon and evening. For tickets and additional information, see the conference schedule at http://www.coppin.edu/download/downloads/id/986/the_national_association_of_dramatic_and_speech_arts_festival_competition

The conference concludes with a banquet at the Sheraton North Hotel in Towson, from 3:30 to 6:00 p.m., featuring the announcement of awards and a keynote performance, “His Excellency, the Honorable Frederick Douglass,” by guest artist Bill Grimmette. A past president of the National Association of Black Storytellers, Grimmette has performed frequently at the Kennedy Center and the Smithsonian Institution in Washington, D.C. The banquet is open to the public, at a cost of $30, which includes the performance. For tickets and additional information, call 410 – 951-3369.

WELCOME PARTICIPANTS and GUESTS of the 78th ANNUAL CONFERENCE of the NATIONAL ASSOCIATION of DRAMATIC and SPEECH ARTS to COPPIN STATE UNIVERSITY.